The suede jacket is back, and in brown
Chocolate, cognac, camel. The jacket that spent twenty years on a shelf has returned, worn with wide-leg trousers and nothing else to compete with it.
There is a type of jacket that fashion keeps rediscovering and then quietly putting away for another decade. The suede trucker. The suede bomber. The suede western, with its brown yoke and silver studs. It has returned, more or less consistently, since the 1970s, each time to a slightly different woman, in a slightly different proportion. The 2026 version has arrived, and it is more wearable than any version in the last fifteen years.
The colour is where to start. Black has been dropped. The suede jacket of this autumn comes in chocolate, cognac, camel, espresso, or occasionally a deep burgundy, and the shift away from black is not a small one. Designers have moved away from the edgier black biker that dominated for years and embraced softer silhouettes in warm, saturated earth tones. One trend writer frames it as a return of real browns to outerwear after a decade of neutrals that were mostly beige. She is right.
The silhouette is where it gets interesting. The current cut is boxy and cropped, hitting at the natural waist or just above. Oversized shoulders. A collar that is either flipped or wide and worn flat. Snap-close pockets at the chest. The reference, if you are old enough to notice, is somewhere between the 1970s western jacket and the 1990s suede trucker your mother probably owned. The best of this season's pieces manage to recall both without actually being either.
What the industry has done well, this time, is price it across tiers. Saint Laurent has a version in dark chocolate suede with silver hardware. Isabel Marant did a version in olive earlier this year. Massimo Dutti has a brown trucker that is a surprisingly close read on the Saint Laurent silhouette for a fraction of the price. The accessible-tier version from COS or Arket in a slightly stiffer suede is also doing its job this autumn. Pick whichever price point you can live with. The silhouette is what carries it.
How to wear it, which is the point. The jacket wants a wide-leg trouser in a colour that does not compete. A soft blue-grey, a chocolate, a cream, a mid-wash denim. On top, a slim striped knit polo or a fine ribbed turtleneck, nothing printed and nothing cropped. On the foot, a flat loafer in burgundy or deep brown, or a low heel if the trouser is cut to the floor. A small bag in a complementary leather, carried in the hand or at the elbow, never swinging. One pair of earrings. Nothing else.
The specific combination that will arrive the most reliably, if you want a formula, is this. Brown suede trucker. Dusty blue-grey wool trousers with a soft pleat. Striped long-sleeved polo in grey and burgundy. Burgundy loafer with a low heel. Small burgundy patent bag. Done. Any version of this will work. Any variation on it will work. The suede jacket is doing most of the talking.
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